


Things I Can't Say

by Calais_Reno



Series: Random Strangers [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Captivity, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Don't copy to another site, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Healing, M/M, POV John Watson, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 16:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17348387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: John adjusts to his new life, a captive now rescued and returned to a world that has moved on without him.This can be read by itself, but might make more sense if you've read Part 1.





	Things I Can't Say

**Author's Note:**

> Author note: I thought about writing a part 2 for Random Strangers, and this happened.  
> I realised that in that story John was the iceberg, submerged and invisible. Once I decided to see what was below that surface, I knew that this story could be harrowing.  
> I’m sorry. I have tried to exercise restraint here. Alternates between now and flashbacks, none terribly graphic. Angst, yes. Psychological manipulation and abuse. Eventual healing.

“I’m John Watson,” I tell him.

He looks at me for just a moment, then returns to whatever he was doing when I came in. Something with test tubes. Eyedroppers. Beakers. An experiment.

It’s stupid to think that he would remember. Why would he remember? He’s forgotten.

“Sherlock Holmes?” I ask, just to be sure.

He’s not looking at me. “Yes.”

I show him the letter. “We survived,” I say. “Random strangers.”

He remembers. He’s not interested.

It turns out that he’s a detective.

He lets me use the loo.

 

_I told Bob I needed to use the loo._

_Call me Bob, he said, but his name isn’t really Bob. He thinks it’s funny that I call him this. A friendly name for an enemy. I don’t know his real name._

_Oxford, he said. That explains the accent. Not British, though. Not European. He’s Pashtun, I think. A young man, not yet thirty. He wears linen trousers, a loose shirt, and a turban. Taliban, I think. I’m not in a position to ask questions._

_I was to remain in the chair, he said, until I could answer his questions. “You’re not being cooperative,” he said in perfect English._

_I’d been sitting, tied to the chair for hours, maybe days. I said I was thirsty, so he gave me some water._

_I couldn’t hold it any longer._

_Bob was disgusted. You’re an animal, he said. Clean yourself up._

 

My new clothes are stiff. I sit opposite Sherlock Holmes drinking the tea he has given me. We’re having a conversation. I’m trying to remember how to do this.

You think you won’t forget ordinary things. Tea and biscuits. Conversation. But you do. Nothing feels familiar.

He is not pleased, I think. There is something he doesn’t like about me. I am inconvenient. I will have to pay him back for all of this.

“Just for tonight,” I tell him.

I didn’t have a plan. Not really. In hospital I told them I had a place to go. _I’m a doctor_ , I told them. Malnutrition, they said. Poorly healed injuries. _I know how to take care of myself,_ I said. They sent a doctor to talk with me, a psychologist. He seemed bored, said I could go back to London. The airport, a cab, then here.

I imagined something different. But this is the man who wrote the letter, the man who kept me alive. “A few days at most.”

He nods. “All right.”

I write in my little notebook so I won’t forget how much I owe. It’s already more than I can repay.

 

_Bob says I’m clumsy. Look at you, he says. You can’t even hold a cup._

_My left arm doesn’t work properly. A bullet tore through my shoulder and that’s how this all began. The first days, I don’t remember. They operated on me, dug the bullet out, and gave me drugs for the pain. Then there was infection._

_When they first take the bandage off, I can see the damage, and I know my days as a surgeon are over. If I ever get out of this place and make it back to England._

_The letter is still in my pocket. When they go away, I take it out and read it again._

We are connected only by the words on this page.

Perhaps we may one day meet.

_I think about Sherlock Holmes, in his rehab facility. I imagine him sitting at a desk, writing a letter he doesn’t want to write. A letter to me, a random stranger. He did what he had to do. He knew I was doing the same. In our noncontiguous sectors of the infinite plane, we each do what we have to do._

_Bob takes away the letter when he finds it. He breaks my right arm because I spilled food on myself and broke the cup. He raises a club to beat me. I raise my arm, and he brings the club down, breaks my ulna. This is called a_ nightstick _fracture._

 

I sleep on Sherlock’s floor because I don’t want to mess anything up. I am unclean, filthy. And I am used to sleeping on the floor. Or in chairs. I can literally fall asleep standing up. I’ve had to do that a few times, when they didn’t let me lie down.

The nightmares started later, in the hospital. This is funny because all the time I was in Afghanistan, I never had a nightmare. At Bastion, I was either too busy or too tired to process anything. No dreams at all. After I was captured, sleep was an escape. I loved falling asleep in the little cell where they kept me. It was quiet and dark, and my mind was free.

Then they went away, and I was truly free. On my own. I don’t know why they went away, what had happened. They just left, and then I was found, and nobody knew what to do with me. I heard people speaking English. They were Americans, and I was rescued.

In the hospital there was always noise, always light. That’s just how hospitals are. It scared me at first, to be in such a big, bright place. It made my heart pound like it was trying to escape from my chest. People kept coming into the room, checking me, touching me. _I’m fine_ , I said.

But I’m not fine.

I wake up. My right hand is bleeding and there are glass shards all over me and the rug. Sherlock is standing there, looking at me, seeing what I did. He’s angry, I think.

 _Stay calm_. “Sorry about the mirror,” I say. This is a disaster. I want to weep.

He’s going to hit me now. He’s going to grab my arm and break it because I’m clumsy and stupid and I didn’t clean the dishes. I make a mess and act like a fool. I’m broken and nobody wants me. Nobody is waiting for me.

He’s not hitting me. He’s cleaning my hand. He has plasters and ointment, and he’s putting them on the cuts. His hands are gentle, and he talks quietly. “It’s all right,” he says.

He doesn’t say anything about the mirror. I add it to my list.

“You’re my guest,” he says. He asks about the money. Of course I’ll repay him, but naturally he wants to know how long that will take. I’m a freeloader, an anonymous soldier he wrote a letter to, and he has no obligation to pay for my food and tea and plasters. Especially if I break things.

I tell him that I have no money because the government still thinks I’m dead. Stupid problem to have, but there it is.

When I was in hospital, a person came to explain to me why it’s so difficult when the government thinks you’re dead. It’s a lot of paperwork, she said. It might take a while. Do I have someone to stay with until they get it straightened out?

I gave her the address I found on the internet: _221B Baker Street_. She says they’ll contact me there.

I promise Sherlock Holmes that I will pay him back. He says that we should call and find out what’s the trouble, why they can’t just fix it so I have my check. He is annoyed, as he should be. I could explain it to him, but don’t want to make excuses. In truth, it would be easier to be dead.

 

_Bob is sorry he broke my arm. He’s not a doctor, he says, but he knows how to set bones. He realigns my ulna. I try not to scream, but tears are running down my face and I’m shaking with the effort of not screaming and I know he will laugh at me for crying. Tough guy, he called me when I was first captured._

_Hey, bad-ass, don’t be a baby, he says as he puts the cast on. But he’s speaking quietly, and I know he’s sorry he hit me. He smiles at me, pats my cheek. He doesn’t have anything for the pain, he says, but I can have my letter back._

_I’m thinking I should write back to Sherlock Holmes, tell him I got his letter, but I don’t want to ask. And I can’t hold a pen. I’ll wait._

 

There’s no milk in the fridge. Sherlock sighs. He pays for everything, and all I do is eat. 

“I’ll go,” I tell him. Then I remember I don’t have any money.

He’s pulling out his wallet. A card. I’m thinking _just hand it to the cashier_ , but he explains. There is a number. The card slides in, you put in the number, hit enter, and the card comes back out.

Only the card doesn’t come out. I put in the number again, but nothing happens. _Enter. Enter. Cancel. Cancel._ I’m starting to sweat. The lights are bright and there are too many voices. _Enter. Cancel._

Someone puts a hand on my shoulder. “Can I help?”

People should not sneak up behind me. People should not touch me. A person I don’t know is touching me. The shop is very bright and there are a lot of people walking around. They’re walking around and talking loudly and I’m sweating. A person is touching my left shoulder, pulling me away from the machine.

I don’t remember the rest.

I am captured, put in a cell. A prisoner. Four walls, quiet and dark. I feel safe.

 

_I could have let you die, Bob says. The infection would have killed you if I hadn’t paid for antibiotics._

_I nod, but say nothing. That’s one of the rules: don’t talk unless I ask you something._

_He says look at me, tough guy._

_I know his face better than my own. He is not angry, but disappointed. He takes care of me, gives me food and medicine, things I don’t deserve._

_He asks: Do you want to know why I did that? Why I didn’t let your arm rot and fall off?_

_This is a question. I’m expected to answer. I don’t know, I say. I want to know._

_I’m not a monster, he says. Do you think I’m a monster?_

_No, I say. You’re not a monster._

_He smiles. I was going to be a doctor, you know._

_This is not a question. I say nothing._

_You should be grateful, he says. I let you live._

 

I couldn’t do Tesco, not a second time, so there’s no milk. Sherlock said it’s all right. _We’ll go home,_ he said.

_Home._

“This is your home, John,” Sherlock says. “This is where you live.”

We’re standing in the flat at 221B. He’s holding my hand, looking at me, smiling. He has not asked a question, but I sense that an answer is expected.

He says we can be flatmates, and I can’t even describe what it feels like to be invited to share this. My home for three years was smaller than the loo in this flat. My bed was a thin mattress. Here, there is tea and toast and Thai takeaway. There are hot showers and clean sheets and large windows I can look through and see London. I would be happy to stay here forever.

He is looking at me, the question not asked.

“Thank you,” I say. There is so much more I can’t say.

 

Sherlock makes some phone calls and a woman comes to the flat the following day. Ella is her name, and she’s a counsellor who specialises in people like me. She says that I was brave to be a captive for so long. I’m a survivor. But I can talk now, and I don’t have to carry on pretending I’m okay.

I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but I’m not okay.

Leaving the flat is not something I can do, I decide. Not yet. “Is that okay?” I ask Sherlock.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s all fine.”

“Maybe I’ll never be able to leave,” I say.

He smiles. “It is what it is.” And he holds up his hand.

I lay my palm against his. He knows I don’t like being hugged, that it scares me, but he wants to comfort me and let me know he understands. His hand is larger than mine, his fingers long and elegant. It’s a beautiful hand.

 

The not talking doesn’t bother me. _I sometimes don’t talk for days on end,_ Sherlock said. He was asking me to be his flatmate and said we should know the worst about one another if that was to happen.

The worst things are the things I can’t say.

 

_Bob is the only one who talks to me. It isn’t exactly conversation. He says things and I listen. Sometimes he asks questions and I answer. But mostly he just talks._

_He talks about when he lived in Oxford, when he came there as a young student._

_The English are weak, he says. Western culture descends from the Romans and the Greeks, who were immoral. The culture is dying and your people are too stupid to notice._

_He has read a lot of history. He’s even read Plato and Aristotle. Socrates was a sodomite, Bob says. All the Greeks were._

_He tells me that the others wanted to rape me, but he said they were not to touch me. We will not conquer sodomites by fucking them, he says. Their civilisation must be allowed to crumble under the weight of its own immorality._

_There are a number of things I could say to that. But nobody asks._

_I like listening to Bob talk. He’s very intelligent. I don’t usually agree with him, but I can see his point of view. He gave me a book to read once:_ The Martyrdom of Man _, written by a man named William Winwood Reade._

_Social Darwinism, he says. Reade was right about a lot of things, but wrong about religion. Science will never replace religion. Do you know why?_

_I don’t. I have never been particularly religious. It’s a thing people do, building churches, going there on Sundays, singing, etc. I suppose I’m an atheist._

_People in captivity might pray, I think, because they don’t like to rule out the possibility that someone is listening. Sometimes I try that. I don’t kneel or anything. I just sit and think,_ Don’t forget about me. I’m still here. Don’t let me die. Not here, not yet.

_Bob says that Muslims have the right idea about prayer. They don’t pray for God, whatever He might be, but for themselves. They pray out of obedience._

_He explains why religion is necessary. Human beings need something to bow to, and they will not bow to reason. He tells me to read the book, so I do. We have a conversation about it._

_Reade says that the individual doesn’t matter because individuals vary, Bob explains. Only in the aggregate do people matter. That is why religion is necessary; it moulds humans into society by controlling their impulses. In a society where any one individual may do anything he pleases, there is chaos. That is what has happened to Western culture, he says._

_He leaves me to think about this for a few days. People push food and water through the slot in the door. I read Sherlock’s letter again._ Alone protects me _._

_I might kill you someday, Bob says when he comes back. If I do, it will be because you are dangerous._

 

DI Lestrade comes to visit. He holds out his hand, a gesture of goodwill. I remember a hand on my shoulder and my stomach starts to churn.

“Brown says he’s sorry,” he tells me, dropping his hand to his side. “He didn’t mean to upset you.”

I nod, embarrassed.

He and Sherlock talk. There are cases they work on together, but Sherlock says he’s not available just now. I want to tell him it’s fine, I can manage here by myself, but I just listen.

There are things I need to figure out. It’s hard to put them into words. Sometimes I wake at night and think I’m still in my cell. Then I realise I’m not, and for a moment I’m afraid.

 

_He woke me some mornings by holding a gun to my head._

_Bang, he said. Good morning, bad ass._

_I never got used to that._

 

Night terrors are different from nightmares. I’ve had nightmares, dreams where terrible things happen and I wake up crying. A terror comes out of nowhere. It’s pure, white hot fear stabbing my brain, as if some demon has found the panic button and pushed it hard. No dream as prelude, no crying— just screaming.

Sherlock is very patient with my screaming. He’s had a bed put in the upstairs room so I can have some privacy and will stop falling off the sofa, hurting my shoulder. He knows I’m used to being alone and says that’s okay. He understands because he doesn’t mind being alone either. And perhaps my screams won’t seem as loud from there.

It’s one in the morning and he’s sitting on the edge of my bed. I’m in a cold sweat, my heart pumping double-time. “Sorry,” I gasp when I realise what’s happened.

“No worries,” he says. “You didn’t wake me. I was just reading.”

“Sorry,” I say again.

“You always have these terrors early in your sleep cycle, probably when you’re transitioning into the deepest level of sleep.” He smiles. “The internet told me.”

My pulse is still racing. “Could you…?”

He stands. “Of course. I’ll just go back downstairs.”

“No,” I say. “Could you stay a bit, maybe talk to me for a while?”

He talks. He tells me about Redbeard, a dog he had when he was a child, about his older brother Mycroft, who he claims is even smarter than he is, and his parents, who worry about him still, even though he no longer touches drugs. He describes his first case, how he decided to be a detective. He talks about rehab and how he decided that he wanted to live.

“Why?” I ask.

He sighs. “Part of the reason I started was that the drugs made me feel more normal. I felt more social, more relaxed around people. I’d become involved with… a person. I thought I loved him. He could always get drugs. Then he left, and all I had was the drugs. Finally, I realised that it was a good thing he’d left, and a stupid thing to hang onto the drugs.”

I nod. I had a girlfriend before I left for Afghanistan. Mary was her name. I’d always seen marriage as a necessity for a happy life. Marriage and children were what every man wanted, I thought, so I did too. And Mary was a pretty girl, a nice woman. The night I left, I asked her to wait for me. It would be easier to be far away, I thought, if I knew someone was at home, waiting for me. She said no. She didn’t want to be engaged to someone who might die.

It was amazing how quickly I forgot about her. She never wrote. I called her from Germany, when I was in hospital _,_ and she told me she’d married. I called Harry, but had to leave a message. She never called me back. It was true, what Bob told me; nobody was waiting for me.

Sherlock squeezes my hand. “You should get some sleep. Tomorrow you have physio.”

“Don’t leave,” I say. “Not until I’m asleep.”

In the morning I wake up with Sherlock curled around me, snoring lightly. It feels right.

 

We make a trip to Tesco. “I don’t want to push you if you’re not ready,” he says. But he’s glad when I ask to come along.

Neither of us has left the flat in days. We watch crap telly, read the paper, make tea. Sherlock plays his violin and I listen. He makes short runs if we need something, but mostly Mrs Hudson has been bringing us what we need.

I have my first check, so I can finally open a bank account and pay Sherlock back. I sit and answer questions as man behind a desk does things on his computer. I expect there to be trouble, for this bank person to say _there is no record of you. You don’t exist. Nobody is waiting for you._

But Sherlock has talked to Mycroft, who apparently has the power to raise the dead, and the man just smiles, hands me papers and asks me to sign at the X.

At Tesco, we get a trolley and begin filling it with all the things we like to eat. There are entire shelves filled with breakfast cereal, biscuits, tinned foods. He asks my opinion on beans. He suggests we try a new type of biscuits. He puts five jars of jam in the trolley. “We love jam,” he tells the cashier.

 

In the early hours of the morning, I hear Sherlock playing his violin. Listening, I fall asleep.When light is coming through the curtains, he is asleep beside me.

 

_I need to write a letter, I tell Bob._

_He hasn’t asked me any question, and I’m not supposed to talk. He might hit me again, or just stop feeding me for a while._

_He laughs. Who you gonna write to, tough guy?_

_No one, I say._

_Good, he says. Because dead men don’t write letters._

 

Lestrade comes by again a few weeks later.

He and Sherlock discuss a case, a woman found dead in a building. There were others before, he says, people who took their lives for no reason. Serial suicides, he calls them.

“I’m going to go have a look,” he tells me, putting on his coat. “Will you be all right?”

 _Maybe he won’t come back_ , I think. _Maybe_ —

“I could go with you,” I say. “If it’s all right.”

He’s worried about this, I can see. “This is… a violent death. A murder. Are you sure you’re ready to see more of that?”

 

PTSD is quite common. An assault, an accident, witnessing a death— many things can trigger it. It can involve injury, but it originates in the mind. As an army doctor, I’ve seen cases, soldiers whole in body whose minds are so filled with pain that they cannot cope. They have flashbacks, nightmares, and they withdraw from life. Their bodies may heal, but their minds are stuck replaying the events.

Ella says that it will take time for me to get over what happened to me. She wants to give me hope, but there are days when I’m not particularly hopeful.

I’ve seen a lot of things. Soldiers blown to pieces, horrific injuries.

Once I saw a man beheaded. It was on a video that Bob showed me. He wanted me to watch, to understand how little an individual matters.

 _Your people have stopped waiting for you,_ he said. _They no longer wonder if they will see you again._

Part of me believed this. Part of me did not.

_Carry on. Do your job. We may one day meet._

 

We take a cab to Brixton. I’m not sure why I’m doing this, but it feels necessary. I focus on breathing.

Sherlock takes my hand and squeezes it. I smile and squeeze back. _Don’t worry._

“We need to get you your own phone,” he says.

I shrug. “Who would I call?”

“Me. You need to be able to call or text me if I’m out. I don’t want you to worry.” He looks out the window a bit. “And what about your sister? You might want to talk to her.”

I don’t want to talk to Harry. We don’t get on. She seems disappointed that I’m alive. Makes her feel guilty she spent all the money. What little there was.

The cab stops. Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock holds the door open for me. “Are you sure you want to be here?” he asks.

“I am here,” I say. “I’ll stay out of your way, though.”

He pays the cab, begins striding towards the police tape. “I might need you.”

“What for?”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Don’t they have forensics people for that?” I ask.

“They have idiots for that,” he replies.

A woman stops us at the tape. “Hello, Freak,” she says to Sherlock.

“Lestrade invited me to take a look,” he says, ignoring her insult.

She lifts the tape. “Who’s this?”

“My colleague, Doctor Watson. Doctor, this is Sergeant Sally Donovan.”

She looks me up and down. “Where did you find a _colleague,_ Freak? Did he follow you home, like a lost puppy?”

“I can wait here, Sherlock,” I say.

Sherlock is livid. “My _colleague_ is a decorated war hero, an army doctor. Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Three years in Afghanistan, a veteran of Kandahar, Helmand, and Bart’s bloody Hospital. Now, may we enter?”

Lestrade is walking towards us. “It’s upstairs.” He looks at me, frowns a bit. “You brought him here?”

“He volunteered.”

He pulls my colleague aside. “Sherlock, he’s got PTSD,” he says quietly, but so I can hear. “He attacked a bloody policeman. It took three men to restrain him. How do you think he’s going to handle a crime scene?”

“He’ll be fine,” Sherlock says. He smiles at me, holds out his hand. I reach for him. “Look,” he says, grabbing my hand and holding it flat so Lestrade can see. “Steady as a rock.”

“All right,” the DI says, “but it’s on you if he cracks.”

 

I don’t crack.

“Bodies don’t scare me,” I say when we’re in the cab riding back to Baker Street. “People with guns don’t scare me.”

“What does scare you?” Sherlock asks.

 

_Bob sometimes sees me reading Sherlock’s letter. I try not to read it when he’s around, but sometimes I look up and he’s already there, at the door, watching me._

_Is that from your girlfriend? he asks._

_I tell him it’s not._

_Boyfriend? He sneers a bit._

_Just a friend, I say._

_You must have it memorised by now. He flicks a cigarette lighter._

_I fold it and put it back in my pocket._

_He sits down on the floor beside me and holds out his hand. Let me read it, he says._

_I shake my head. He will beat me and take it away. He will burn it before my eyes. Maybe he will kill me for defying him._

_His eyes narrow, studying me. Many Afghans have light eyes, but his are bluer even than mine. Strangely beautiful eyes. He flicks the lighter again, puts a cigarette in his mouth. Would you like one? he asks._

_I shake my head. No, thank you._

_Filthy habit, he says, smiling. You’ll live to be a hundred._

_I say nothing._

_Do you know why I don’t take that letter away from you?_

_I shake my head._

_Speak, he says. When I ask you something, you will speak. But he isn’t angry._

_I tell him I don’t know._

_He chuckles. Because it gives you hope. He takes a drag on his cigarette, lets the smoke trickle out through his nostrils. You don’t understand, do you?_

_No, I don’t, I reply._

_He leans towards me. When you have no hope, death is a blessing. When I give you death, you will be afraid because you have hope. You will beg me to spare you._

 

I’m not afraid when I shoot the cabby. Later, when Sherlock sees me leaning against the police car, he understands. I look into his clear eyes, and think, _I would die for you_.

 

The day Bob left me, I felt strangely bereft. Abandoned. He was the only person I’d seen in three years, the only one I’d talked to. He and his men packed up while I was asleep, not even saying goodbye. I sat alone in my cell for a hour. Then I heard a helicopter approaching.

Sometimes I still hear his voice in my head. _I’ll take care of you, tough guy,_ he says. _I’ll keep you alive._

Sometimes I hear him say, _I love you._ But he never said that.

In my head, I can say the things I couldn’t say before. _I’m not afraid of you. Death doesn’t scare me._

 _What does scare you?_ he asks.

 

“Sherlock.” We’re standing on the landing. He has his key out, ready to open the door.

Turning, he looks at me. _Concern, fear, love._

“If I ever lose you,” I say. I know how to finish that sentence, but can’t say the words. _Death would be a blessing to me._

Enfolding me in his arms, he whispers, “John. You won’t lose me.”

I’m afraid to say it, but I have to. “I love you.”

His lips meet mine, tentative and gentle. He brushes them against my cheek, my forehead, my mouth. “I love you, John.”


End file.
